Attempted Suicide and ADA Changes: Helping Students Stay Alive

Jo Campbell and Abby PriehsBowling Green State University

March 6, 2015

No Conflict of Interest

• Commission for Counseling and Psychological Services (CCAPS) is sponsoring this program for American Psychological Association (APA) approved continuing education credits for psychologists

• CCAPS representative– Receiving credits– Certificates

Learning OutcomesBy attending this session, participants will be able to:

Recognize the breadth of the college student suicide problem

Identify the changes in ADA Title II related to the direct threat to self standard

Learn how to apply lessons learned from institutions, who have had students filing Office for Civil Rights claims or lawsuits alleging disability discrimination after a suicide attempt

Elicit ideas from colleagues at other institutions to explore how they have established policies

and/or protocols to handle suicidal students.

How Big a Problem Is College Student Suicide? Some Say It’s an Epidemic

Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)

ADA signed intoLaw in 1990 by George H.W. Bush

Capitol Crawl

2008 Amendments

2011 Final Rules

Americans with Disabilities ActFour categories of regulation governing disability discrimination: Title I employment Title II state and local government services

Title III public accommodations Title IV telecommunications services

delegates to

Assigns to Office for Civil Rights for ADA and 504 complaints from higher education (and others):

• Enforce • Investigate• Resolve

Prior to changes in Title II, OCR used the direct threat standard of self or others in reviewing complaints and resolving ADA and 504 cases

§ 35.139 Direct threatadded to Title II effective in 2011

(a) This part does not require a public entity to permit an individual to participate in or benefit from the services, programs, or activities of that public entity when that individual poses a direct threat to the health or safety of others.

(b) In determining whether an individual poses a direct threat to the health or safety of others, a public entity must make an individualized assessment, based on reasonable judgment that relies on current medical knowledge or on the best available objective evidence, to ascertain: the nature, duration, and severity of the risk; the probability that the potential injury will actually occur; and whether reasonable modifications of policies, practices, or procedures or the provision of auxiliary aids or services will mitigate the risk.

Mass ShootingsOn April 16, 2007, in what is the deadliest school shooting in United States history, Seung-Hui Cho shot and killed thirty-two students and faculty and wounded seventeen others on the campus of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech)

Mass Shootings

Northern Illinois UniversityFebruary 14, 2008Steven Kazmierczak Killed five and wounded eighteen

Two Wrongful Death Cases Turn the Judicial Tide: Duty Owed to Notify and Assist

Elizabeth Shin

Schieszler v. Ferrum College 2002

Shin v. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

2005

Michael Frentzel